Yan Huan was very, very busy. Her agency had accepted several commercial offers on her behalf, and all the shoots and reshoots had kept her busy. This continued for some time, and before she knew it Chinese New Year had come again. Once the year was over, she would be 23 years old, according to the traditional Chinese method of counting ages. That meant it had already been three years since she started her second chance at life. Three years! It had not been easy. She had worked almost every day of the last three years, shooting movies and TV shows one after another. She had gotten the Best Newcomer award for her efforts, and also Most Popular Artist, Best Supporting Actress, and also the Rising Star Gold Award. She had participated in most of the industry’s award ceremonies over the last three years, and had the awards to prove it. She was famous now, of course—her many awards and her highly recognizable face saw to that. Her journey to stardom so far had been smooth-sailing, and she knew her star would continue to rise for as long as she wanted it to.
The Chinese New Year movie lineup was finally announced. Among them was Director Huang’s The Uncle and the Flower, and also Director Yan Hua’s big budget movie, Three Kingdoms.
All the actors in Three Kingdoms were famous. And then, of course, there was also Su Muran.
Su Muran was the female lead. She had managed to get into one of the Chinese New Year movies, which was no mean feat for a newcomer. That achievement alone was enough to boost her status in the industry.
Yan Huan did not know how much Su Muran’s acting skills had improved. She had been too busy with her own work to pay any more attention to Su Muran than what was strictly necessary. But Yan Huan knew that Su Muran had participated in several big budget shows; even if her acting was still not up to par, she had the full support of her powerful family, and plenty of backdoor connections to make up for it. It would be nigh impossible for someone blessed with that many resources to fail to become a star.
Yan Huan now knew that she could not prevent Su Muran from becoming famous. As in her previous life, Su Muran would climb the ranks of showbiz while protected by the halo of the mighty Su family. At the same time, it was entirely possible that Su Muran would eventually fall from grace—Yan Huan’s current life had already diverged from her previous life, after all.
She was no longer the Yan Huan from her previous life, but Su Muran was still the same Su Muran.
She finished shooting all the commercials, all the magazine spreads, and all the other work that had been arranged for her by her agency. When she was done, Yan Huan breathed a sigh of relief; she could finally go home to celebrate the New Year now. She had been so busy it was already the eve of Chinese New Year by the time she got home.
She was really tired—so tired, in fact, that she fell asleep as soon as she collapsed onto her bed. By the time she woke up, the night was bright with fireworks and loud with the sound of firecrackers. The festive mood was in the air.
It was after midnight now, which meant it was officially a new year. As per Chinese custom, she was now one year older.
She recalled that she had received a red packet last year. She wondered whether she would be getting one this year as well. Neither she nor Yi Ling had any older relatives, so Yan Huan had given Yi Ling a red packet to make up for it.
She had given both Yi Ling and Luo Lin a generous red packet each, as a thanks for the help and support they had given her over the last year.
The doorbell rang. Yan Huan got up and went to see who it was. Yi Ling was not around; she had returned to her riverside villa, which she considered to be her home now, and insisted on returning to it during the New Year for “housewarming.” As for Yi Ling’s meals, Yan Huan did not worry about that; Lei Qingyi had gone with Yi Ling, and he was never one to go hungry, let alone let Yi Ling starve.
Yan Huan had stayed behind in the apartment her agency had given her. No, that was no longer true—she had bought out the apartment, so it belonged to her now. It was her home. The place was quiet and safe. She liked it here, and it was home. She knew better than to join Yi Ling and Lei Qingyi and be the third wheel. The day Yi Ling finally settled down with a good, dependable man was the day Yan Huan would finally be able to stop worrying about Yi Ling.
She opened the door. To her great surprise, it was Lu Yi.
Why was he here? Hadn’t he gone home to celebrate the New Year?
Lu Yi entered the apartment. He removed his shoes at the door and changed into a pair of indoor slippers. There were two pairs of slippers meant for men in the apartment—Lu Yi’sand Lei Qingyi’s.
Lu Yi set the tupperware he had brought with him on the table. He opened it—it was filled with plump dumplings.
“My mom made them herself. Come over here and have some.”
Lu Yi took out the dumplings. There were vegetarian dumplings and meat dumplings. He knew that Yan Huan preferred to eat vegetarian meals, and so he had asked his mother to make some vegetarian dumplings as well. His mother, Ye Shuyun, had been puzzled at first—when had her son taken an interest in healthy vegetarian meals? He had never shown the slightest interest in it before this. She had then assumed that her boy was “all grown up now,” and knew how to take better care of his health by eating more vegetables.
Lu Yi extracted a stack of red packets from his pocket.
“Happy New Year.” He placed the red packets in Yan Huan’s hand. She did not count them, but she could tell there were several dozen in that stack.
“Where are these from?” Yan Huan had never received so many red packets in her life. There were so many of them! It did not matter how much money was inside; just the number of red packets alone was enough to send her mind reeling.
“My family,” Lu Yi began dividing the dumplings: meat dumplings for him, vegetarian dumplings for Yan Huan.
“And you’re giving them all to me? Don’t you want them?” Yan Huan carefully put the red packets away. He had given them to her, so they were hers now.
“I’m giving them to you.” Lu Yi did not feel at all sad about parting with the money. His heart ached for her—he knew that Yan Huan loved receiving red packets during the New Year. But there were few people around her in a position to give her red packets, and so he brought all of his red packets to give to her.
He hoped it made up for the sorrow she felt over the lack of red packets.
He took out another red packet from his pocket. “And this is from me.”
Yan Huan unabashedly took that packet and slipped it into her pocket as well, looking very much like a greedy money grubber—which was ironic as her net worth and the paycheck she commanded had both reached astronomical levels. But she was not the type to show off her wealth, nor was she the type to spend her money on expensive luxuries. The clothes she wore and the food she ate were no different than those of the average Joe on the street. Her down-to-earth lifestyle led many people to mistakenly assume that she was poor when in fact the opposite was true—she was incredibly wealthy.
Yan Huan picked up her chopsticks and ate a dumpling. As soon as she bit into one, however, tears gathered in her eyes. She took another bite, unable to believe it.
The taste was strikingly similar. It was all so very familiar. Could it be…?
“What’s wrong?” Lu Yi put down his chopsticks and reached out to caress Yan Huan’s cheek. She was openly crying now, like a young child. Her tears were a rare sight—she was a tough, independent woman who did not shy away from hardship and pain. So why was she crying?
“Nothing.” Yan Huan wanted to smile, but the tears would not stop flowing.
“These dumplings taste just like my mother’s. I haven’t had them in a very long time.”
She was telling the truth. The dumplings tasted just like the ones her mother used to make. She had never learned the recipe when her mother was still alive; because of that, she had never been able to recreate the same taste in her dumplings after her mother passed. This was the first time she had had dumplings that tasted like her mother’s in a very, very long time.
